Bush pushes free trade area. (Insider Report).

Speaking to representatives of the Organization for American States (OAS) and the World Affairs Council in Washington, D.C. on January 16th, President George Bush reaffirmed his commitment to creating a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by 2005. The president also announced his intention to expand U.S. funding of the World Bank for this purpose. "We're working to build a Free Trade Area of the Americas, and we're determined to complete those negotiations by January of 2005," said Mr. Bush. "We plan to complete a free trade agreement with Chile early this year. And once we conclude the agreement, I urge Congress to take it up quickly. And I ask the Senate to schedule a vote, as soon as it returns, on renewing and expanding the Andean Trade Preference Act. Today, I announce that the United States will explore a free trade agreement with the countries of Central America.... Our purpose is to strengthen the economic ties we already have with these nations ... and to take another step toward completing the Fr ee Trade Area of the Americas."

Striking a very Clintonesque note on the benefits of government spending on unconstitutional international social programs, Bush boasted: "The United States' funding for international basic education assistance programs this year will be over 45 percent higher than last year. And this spring, the first of our regional teacher training centers will open in Jamaica. Additional centers will be operating in South and Central America by year's end."

President Bush also seems inexplicably enamored with the World Bank, a UN institution notorious for its corruption and financial debacles. He told the OAS audience that "my next budget will include [a] nearly $50 million increase in aid to the World Bank programs that assist the poorest countries." "If the Bank demonstrates it can use the funds to achieve measurable results and helps move forward reform," Bush said, "I'm prepared to consider requesting increases over $100 million in each of my subsequent budgets. This would mean that the amount -- the annual U.S. contribution to these World Bank programs -- would be 30 percent higher than three years ago."

The president's speech was largely a repeat of his promotion of the FTAA in his address to the OAS last year. Speaking to the group on April 17, 2001, three days before the Summit of the Americas in Quebec, the newly inaugurated President Bush affirmed his support for the FTAA. "It will make our hemisphere the largest free-trade area in the world, encompassing 34 countries and 800 million people," he declared. (For background on the FTAA and the Quebec Summit, see "Pincer Strategy Behind the FTAA" in our May 21, 2001 issue.)